Pee, ahem.
Translation Checker: jellypeaches
Editor: jellypeaches & Dobhsh
You Jin’s forehead was covered in sweat. “Royal Consort, if His Royal Highness loses his temper with you during this time… please don’t take it to heart. His Royal Highness isn’t usually like this.”
These close subjects had long experienced the ripples of violence during times when Lin Bozhou lost his sight.
Meng Huan gasped, “It’s that frightening?”
“Frightening isn’t quite the right word.” You Jin considered, “But it’s good to know what to expect. His Royal Highness’s eye illness relapsing puts him in a bad mood, and he is easily angered—”
As a servant, he didn’t dare speak ill of his master, but he still wanted to warn Meng Huan. In his rush, he didn’t quite know what to say.
The atmosphere was slightly tense.
After a moment of silence, Meng Huan asked, “His Royal Highness may not feel good about it either, right?”
You Jin opened his mouth, suddenly dazed. “Yes, of course, he wouldn’t have an easy time either.”
Meng Huan said, “I understand.”
Having some impression of Lin Bozhou’s loss of control and irritability when blind, a chill ran down his back. In the book, Lin Bozhou’s first kill was his half-brother, Lin Chengxu.
Lin Bozhou was the eldest son of the official wife. His mother was a kind and gentle royal consort who understood the Great Rites but wasn’t favored. Meanwhile, Lin Chengxu’s mother was a famous courtesan from a brothel. By virtue of her beauty, she was promoted to a side concubine and was well-regarded in the king’s compound.
Lin Luan treated the kind and gentle Royal Consort coldly repeatedly, but the Royal Consort’s mind was focused solely on her child. She protected Lin Bozhou, brought him up, and carefully trained him to inherit the king’s throne in the future.
Although the side concubine was well-loved in the compound, she also knew that the Royal Consort had a legitimate son, so she didn’t act arrogant and domineering.
—Until Lin Bozhou’s eye problem.
According to the Zong Dynasty’s policies, no matter if it is the title of emperor or king, a person with a physical handicap cannot inherit.
Lin Luan caused Lin Bozhou to be disabled at an early age. After much consideration of the matter, he decided to abolish Lin Bozhou as the heir and establish Lin Changxu instead. This in turn encouraged the side concubine to act more and more authoritatively in the compound because of her son’s status, bullying the Royal Consort and Lin Bozhou.
A few days before Lin Bozhou was about to lose his status, he invited Lin Chengxu to play Weiqi by the river. Because of his blindness, his eyes were covered with a black veil. He made a bet with his younger brother: if he won, Lin Chengxu would have to swim a few laps in the river, but if he lost, he would be the one to jump into the river and swim a few laps.
Lin Chengxu had been bullying his older brother for being blind and also had guest scholars by his side. He truly didn’t believe Lin Bozhou could defeat him and was sure that Lin Bozhou would die, so he accepted. Unexpectedly, he really lost and wanted to go back out of their deal, but Lin Bozhou kicked him into the river, and he drowned, for he wasn’t versed in swimming.
On this matter, Lin Bozhou only had one thing to say: if he had lost, he would have also jumped into the river and died.
By that time, his mentality was already distorted, with an overwhelming desire to win, strong possessive tendencies, and a personality that had him ferociously fighting for supremacy. Especially when he lost his sight, he had no sense of security, and his whole person became extremely sharp.
The summer night breeze was hot and dry, blowing across the corridor.
You Jin suggested, “How about the Royal Consort return to the main palace to rest?”
That was a good proposal, so as not to directly face Lin Bozhou’s trauma.
Meng Huan thought for a moment. “I should still go and check on him.”
“Oh dear, His Royal Highness is in a bad mood right now. Let alone scolding and beating subordinates, there might also be throwing and smashing objects. This old servant is just afraid that something will hit the Royal Consort. It won’t be good if His Royal Highness hurts the Royal Consort by accident.”
Meng Huan was also somewhat afraid.
If Lin Bozhou was to pull out a knife, it was not impossible for him to stab Meng Huan with it. Similar to Cao Cao, his insecurity led to a tendency to be highly suspicious and even kill people while he was dreaming.
Meng Huan hesitated for a moment with pursed lips.
They were a married couple after all, so Meng Huan insisted, “Then I will check on His Royal Highness in secret after he is asleep.”
You Jin could only nod, “Understood.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Because of Lin Bozhou’s loss of sight right now, he stopped his official work and went to sleep earlier than before. Meng Huan strolled around outside for a while before a young eunuch crept up and said, “His Royal Highness is asleep.”
Zfcu Lejc mbeiv ub lc ab rff tlw cbk.
Meng Huan made an acknowledging sound and took off his shoes, so he would make less noise. He sneaked into the hall, where nothing was smashed, but in the faint light he could see that the paper on the table was crumpled into a ball. The narrow cracks in the paper ball showed signs of someone suppressing his rage.
Qlat iluta rafqr, Zfcu Lejc mjwf ab atf yfvrlvf.
C ilcf bo gbiilcu tliir gbrf ogbw atf yfv. Olc Dbhtbe kjr islcu bc tlr rlvf, ibbxlcu jr lo tf kfgf jriffq.
Llr vjgx tjlg mbnfgfv tlr fjgr jcv cfmx, bcis rtbklcu tlr qjif pjk.
Meng Huan leaned forward and looked at the sleeping man to make sure he was really asleep.
Which he was. Good.
As Meng Huan was preparing to leave, he saw the half-fallen quilt.
His brain went blank for a moment as he reflexively pulled the quilt up.
In the next moment, the figure on the bed moved.
Lin Bozhou woke up, but he didn’t speak, as if waiting for the person to say something.
Without the ability to see, he didn’t know who was in the room with him, but since he was being very difficult, he didn’t want to ask.
Meng Huan whispered, “Your Royal Highness, it’s me. I came to check if you’re asleep yet.”
Lin Bozhou sat up slightly. His eyes had been wrapped in white gauze. His hands lay beside his body, blue veins were visible on his pale skin, and his demeanor was very tired.
He called out, “Royal Consort.”
Meng Huan’s heart squeezed.
This was the first time the man didn’t call him Huan Huan, but Royal Consort.
Meng Huan’s knees were on the bed as he leaned down slightly. “I’m pulling the quilt over for you. You be good and sleep, alright?”
He didn’t ask about Lin Bozhou’s eyes.
Nor was he greeted with the usual ‘Mmm’, but with, “Where were you earlier? Why did you only come and see this Regent now?”
Silence filled the room.
Meng Huan squeezed the corner of the blanket and became conscious of the coldness in Lin Bozhou’s voice.
…Was he losing his temper?
Did the man think that he disdained his blindness and purposefully didn’t come see him?
After some thought, Meng Huan decided to tell the truth. “I heard you weren’t in a good mood and was afraid that you would scold or hit me, so I thought to check on you once you were asleep.”
“…”
Lin Bozhou repeated, as if he were mulling on those words, “Scold or hit you.”
Meng Huan murmured, “Err.”
“They told you that, didn’t they?” Lin Bozhou snorted as he said in a low and hollow voice, “So this is how this Regent appears in their eyes when the illness occurs.”
“……”
Meng Huan realized that there was something wrong with the topic of conversation, and with how bad Lin Bozhou’s state of mind was, it would definitely make him feel worse if this topic continued, so Meng Huan changed it. “It was just me overthinking it.”
More silence.
Lin Bozhou had his back to him, unmoving.
Meng Huan called softly, “Your Royal Highness?”
No answer.
Meng Huan propped himself up on the bed and leaned forward slightly, raising his voice a bit. “Your Royal Highness?”
“You can leave if you want to.” Lin Bozhou’s voice was hoarse.
Meng Huan didn’t know why, despite Lin Bozhou speaking in a flat and light tone, it seemed to contain some complicated emotions.
…Like everyone disdained him.
…Like he was abandoned.
Meng Huan froze for a moment. As he sat on the bed, he surveyed the empty hall.
Lin Bozhou couldn’t see anything, and he was alone on top of that. Would he feel lonely in this darkness?
An inexplicable feeling swelled up in Meng Huan’s heart. He frowned, hating this tight feeling in his chest.
He remained seated and didn’t move.
After a while, he leaned over again and whispered to Lin Bozhou, “Your Royal Highness, can I stay and keep you company?”
He spoke very softly, and when he talked, his breath softly touched the man’s ear.
It was warm, like a feather falling on the back of his ear.
But Lin Bozhou still didn’t say anything.
Fine.
Meng Huan rolled his eyes and whispered, “I will sleep right next to you. I will not take up too much space, and I will be very quiet, so I won’t disturb you.”
He could vaguely pick up that Lin Bozhou was shutting himself out from the world, hating everything, and not wanting to live, let alone speak.
Meng Huan waited quietly for half a minute and then announced, “I’m coming up.”
He dawdled while getting on the bed, trying to be as gentle as possible so that he would not flare up Lin Bozhou’s anger before his eye illness healed. But when he sat down, he felt something hard and pointy, like the back of Lin Bozhou’s thin hand.
“……”
Help.
So awkward.
Meng Huan quickly scrambled to his feet and pulled out Lin Bozhou’s hand. His hands were so pale and small that it took both of his hands to move the big hand, but he could only grip two of its fingers.
Meng Huan stroked them and said honestly, “I’m sorry.”
Lin Bozhou still stayed silent. That kind of shutting oneself away and hating the world had reached the level of ‘Just pretend I’m dead’.
Meng Huan gently blew on the large hand, saying in his heart that ‘it’s alright, it doesn’t hurt’, before putting it back in its original spot and covering it with the blanket.
Meng Huan lay under the quilt, but Lin Bozhou still had his back to him.
Why was the man keeping his back to him?
Lin Bozhou usually slept on his back, right?
And also liked embracing him.
When Meng Huan thought about it, he remembered that when he was young, he would sleep with the caretaker at the orphanage. When he had a temper tantrum, he would also turn his back to her, refusing to turn around.
When that happened, as long as the caretaker hugged him from behind, Meng Huan would instantly cry bitterly, as if he had endured for a long time, waiting only for a hug.
Lin Bozhou must have been waiting in the dark for a long time, right?
Should he hug him?
…Meng Huan was a bit afraid. He was afraid that Lin Bozhou would lose his temper and smack him.
Besides, Lin Bozhou probably didn’t like physical contact with others in such a condition.
Mang Huan comforted himself about his timidity, patted the quilt, and gave up on the idea for now.
He planned to sleep it off.
The sound of breathing that entered his ears was very light. In the silence of the night, Meng Huan sometimes couldn’t hear Lin Bozhou’s breathing at all and felt as if he was dead.
“…”
Meng Huan had a little trouble sleeping.
He opened his eyes wide until his eyes were sore and tired, and then he squinted again, allowing the faint sleepiness in his mind to wash over him.
Meng Huan didn’t spend long in the sweetness of sleep before he heard a loud noise, as if something fell from a high place, causing a loud bang as it struck the ground.
Meng Huan snapped his eyes open, and as the faint lights in the hall flickered, he realized that the spot beside him was empty.
Had Lin Bozhou gotten up?
Meng Huan shifted his gaze and turned to the back, clad in snow-white sleepwear in front of him. Lin Bozhou was propping himself up on the bedside table, where he accidentally knocked over a candlestick, getting molten wax on the back of his hand.
The eunuch outside seemed about to enter, until Lin Bozhou’s angry rebuke, “Get out!”
Anger radiated from his entire body.
He must have wanted to get up but couldn’t see anything and upset the candlestick while feeling around in the dark.
Meng Huan came forward and blinked, “Your Royal Highness?”
Lin Bozhou bowed his head, strands of dark hair falling loose. His face was stained with dark shadows, and his lips were sickly pale. There was an indescribable sense of desperation in his expression.
Meng Huan grabbed his hand and found the back of the large hand, and the long fingers were very tense. The spot where the wax dried was slightly red.
Meng Huan took the man by the hand. The hand twitched, as if Lin Bozhou wanted to pull back, but he stopped.
This meant that Lin Bozhou seemed willing to let his hand be held.
Meng Huan looked at him and carefully removed the solidified wax. “What did Your Royal Highness get out of bed to do? I can help you.”
It was still late at night—not yet time to get up, nevermind to go to court.
Lin Bozhou’s lips were tightly shut.
Meng Huan softly uttered, “Mmm?”
He opened his mouth and revealed two words.
“To urinate.”
“…”
The author has something to say:
Urinate means to pee. Hehehe (Oh no, this perverted author is so excited. Huan-bao, ravage him!)
The translator has something to add:
Teo: Just fyi, the Chinese ‘urine’ used here is even less commonly used in the modern period.
Kill people while he was dreaming (好夢中殺人): The original Chinese here is a very common misquote of a line in the novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The commonly known misquote is 好夢中殺人, which is directly translated as “kill people in good dreams” (note, the Chinese terms for dream and nightmare are literally “good dream” and “bad dream”), but the original is actually “夢中好殺人”, which on its own, it means “(I) like to/am liable to kill people while dreaming”—this is where the original text shed some light. Because this phrase was originally meant as a warning: Cao Cao follows this statement up with “Whenever I fall asleep, you absolutely must not approach me”. So, in the original contact, he was actually warning his guards not to get close to him while he was asleep, out of concern for their safety, knowing that he might kill them by accident (that’s why the translation of “am liable to” is more accurate). However, the misquote painted him as a paranoid figure, who killed his would-be assassins in his dreams at best, and at worse, labeled him as bloodthirsty and enjoyed slaughtering people.
Meng Huan probably used it for the misquote’s meaning, which is that Lin Bozhou is paranoid and vicious enough to kill people in his good dreams (the misunderstanding/mischaracterization of the misquote actually fit Lin Bozhou really well).
Oohh wax? That’s gotta really burn, I’m surprised he didn’t yelp or anything!
Bahaha, don’t go back on your word now Huan Huan! Go ahead and help your husband 😏
Thanks for the chapter!
Thanks you for the update 🩵
That right there sums up the vulnerability of losing one’s sight 😬. It is a good time to have a trusted, humble spouse if you don’t want your servants to pity you and lose respect. Let Huan Huan help.
…is huan huan going to understand what that means if it’s rarely used? Thank you for the update !
Why this chapter is so sad? QAQ
Thank You for the new update (๑ơ ₃ ơ)♥
Poor hubby, huan huan will make it all better for you <333 first step: help hubby pee ☺
Thank you for the translator’s note, the misquote fits Huanhuan’s understanding of Lin Bozhou’s character, but I suspect the original quote is actually more accurate. I love seeing the contrast between how Huanhuan thinks of Lin Bozhou, the novel character, and Lin Bozhou, the living, breathing (lonely, hurting) person in front of him.(I’m sad we missed out on big spoon Huanhuan, hopefully next time he’ll follow his instincts and hug his hubby u_u)
Brave boy, help your husband
Thank you for your translation 💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚
Thanks for the chapter, I hope Huan Huan could help his husband to be better person in this bad situation and could be the support that he needs … it’s a shame that Huan Huan is so ignorant as to help run the empire.